#16 December 28, 2018
I recently took part in a symposium at Tokyo University of the Arts with Jack Lang, who was the Culture Minister under Mitterrand Administration. While in office, he launched the famous Grand Projects (building Grand Louvre, Opera Bastille), and is known as the key figure who revived French culture in the latter half of the 20th century.
Particularly noteworthy policy about Jack Lang is that he not only revitalized Paris culturally through the projects but also established FRAC (Fonds régionaux d’art contemporain) in many regions in France to promote their culture further. I was extremely looking forward to the discussion with Lang because within the New Generation FRAC scheme from 2000 that designated six cities, KKAA was selected to design two of their centers – one in Besancon and the other in Marseilles.
I was impressed by the fact that Lang had an intuitive trust in architecture about its vital role in a nation’s cultural policy. He also emphasized that strong resistance was unavoidable when new architecture was proposed to change the city.
From this talk I’ve learned that the current diversity and prosperity of arts and culture in France had been brought about by his unyielding attitude.
ProjectsXiangcheng Yangcheng Lake Tourist Transportation Center
This is a port terminal for the lake called Yangcheng, known for the production of Shanghai crabs. We aimed to build a topographic structure as a large hill by randomly placing aluminum extruded materials with single-sized sections. Inside is designed as the assemblage of slanted floors, in order to maintain the same landform both in inside and outside that create some random yet ambiguous state. Read MoreProjectsCamper Paseo de Gracia
This Camper shop in Barcelona faces the Plaza Catalonia. In this project, we renewed the space with vaulted ceramic plates which were used as the form-work of floor slabs. This was a revolutionary method of construction developed in Catalonia as previously, floors had been supported by wooden beams. The ground-breaking concept of this Catalan vault was a great inspiration to Gaudi throughout his works. Here, the Catalan vault functions as the basic unit of the furniture, from shelves, to benches, and counters for the shoes, giving a warm and friendly atmosphere which reflects the culture of Catalonia. Read MoreProjectsForest for living
In this project, we fitted together 25-millimeter-thick pieces of structural karamatsu (larch) plywood to create a cloud-shaped pavilion that enables a life among the trees. We eliminated categorical distinctions between structure, partition, and furniture with the goal of leading people back to a state where thin pieces of wood seem to float around in the air. We have always dreamt of providing architecture that could respond flexibly to flow of human life, and this simple assembly of small, identical units realized it. The pavilion, which reminds us of a peaceful state in a former time when people lived among the trees was the first in a series of structures that involve fitting together thin pieces of wood. Read MoreProjectsV&A Dundee
The new building for UK’s Victoria & Albert Museum (London) stands on the waterfront of Dundee, a city in the north of Scotland. It is the first design museum in Scotland and is expected to function as a base for promoting Scottish culture. The building site faces the River Tay which flows south of the Dundee River. The structure projects out over the water, an idea which we proposed for a new type of architecture which blends into the natural environment and the surrounding landscape. We were intrigued by the beautiful cliffs of Orkney Island in the north of Scotland and wanted to convey its natural randomness through the architecture, so we came up with the idea of stacking layers of long slabs of precast concrete with varying angles, to realize a façade with subtle nuances and dynamics. Today’s advanced systems for parametric design enabled us to achieve our purpose here. We opened a cave through the center of the building to connect the beautiful nature of River Tay with Union Street: the axis running through the town of Dundee. Dundee was once the most prosperous harbor city in Scotland, but a group of warehouses erected in the 20th century virtually severed the relationship between the river and the city. The warehouses were removed to revive the site as the core of an ambitious urban design, using the museum as its symbol. The hole in the museum made it possible to extend the activities of the city out to the waterfront and now the river has reclaimed its role as a promenade. Using a void to strengthen the connection between nature and people is an idea found in Shinto shrines, using Torii, the gateway to the shrine. For the interior, randomly attached panels worked effectively to create a wide and … Read More